Captain Carline, whose elegant breeches had been chafed thin by the ride, gaped at him. 'Sleep, sir? But we haven't got tents!

'Good.

They slept.

For two days he marched them westward. They slept rough, as they would in Spain, and Sharpe spared the men the parades and drills which had plagued them at Foulness. Not that he made it easy, but he tried, so far as it was possible in this plump, easy country, to give them a taste of what a campaign march was like.

At night they set picquets. To two of his Captains, Smith and Carline, a picquet was a smart group of men who stood to attention at the boundary of a camp and had no purpose other than to salute officers.

On the first night that Smith set the picquets, Regimental Sergeant Major Harper, hidden in a thicket of blackberries, put a bullet into a tree trunk beside the Captain. Smith jumped a foot in the air. 'Sir! Sir!

Sharpe beckoned Smith to one side. 'If that was the French and not the RSM, you'd be dead. Hide the buggers.

'Hide them?

'If you were French, Captain, how would you approach this place?

Smith frowned, then pointed to where the lane disappeared over the hill by a stand of elms. 'There, sir?

'So guard it. And tell them I'll come looking for them.

That night and the subsequent nights, about the officers' fire, Sharpe talked of battles. He did not do it boastfully, but because none of these men, except for d'Alembord and Price, knew what it was to face the French. He told them how to smell unseen cavalry, how to clean a musket on a battlefield, how to face a charging horse, how to make a billet out of nothing, and sometimes Sharpe would wander about the other camp-fires and tell the same stories to the men. Harper did it too, working his Irish magic so that, within two days, he could swear at them foully and they still grinned and tried to impress him with their endurance.

'They're good lads, sir, Harper said.

They were, too, and they were beginning to want to go to Spain, but Sharpe sometimes feared in the night that their hopes would be dashed by his temerity. His idea, that might mean no proof would be needed, was a desperate gamble. He tried not to contemplate failure, and marched his hidden Battalion onwards.

The men were not spared all drills. Where they could, on common land or on the patches of heath that they discovered as they went further west, Sharpe would suddenly bellow at them to form square, or line, or a column of half Companies, and he had Lieutenant Mattingley at his side to time the manoeuvre. They got better each day, even began to enjoy the experience, and they were blessed with little rain, warm sun, and some back pay from the Battalion chest that was still kept in the hired coach. The money dwindled fast. It was used to pay millers for flour, farmers for beer, and innkeepers for ration ale.

On the third day Sharpe stopped the march. The men were harder than they had ever been, as dirty and ragged as any soldiers in Spain, and happier than he had dared hope. He made it a day of exercises, two Companies against two, games in which men tried to surprise picquets or conceal themselves in woodland; stalking games that would not be of great use to any of them unless they joined the Light Company, but which were a rest from the hard slog of marching. That evening, to the concern of the sergeants and officers, he let them go to the tavern in a nearby village, promising to flog any man who made trouble or who could not walk back to the bivouac.

'You won't see the filth again. Sergeant Lynch, put into d'Alembord's Company, was surly still, ever ready to preach doom. Slowly, as the punishment he had expected did not materialise, he was regaining his old bumptious confidence. Charlie Weller still stared at him in hatred, remembering the death of Buttons.

Sharpe did not smile. He sensed the mutual hatred between himself and the Irish Sergeant. 'I am not a gambling man, Sergeant Lynch, but I will wager you one pound a man, which you can well afford, that every man will come back.

Lynch would not take the bet and every man came back.

Twice Sharpe met senior officers, both riding close to their country estates, and both delighted to meet him. They nodded genially at the marching men. Sharpe said they were on exercise and neither officer thought there was anything odd in it, which meant that there was no hue and cry being made for a half Battalion missing in England.

Sharpe was certain that Lord Fenner would institute a search, but he guessed the search would concentrate on Chelmsford and then, perhaps, on one of the depots, like Chatham, from whence the replacements sailed to Spain. If he was found in the next two days, before he could lay on the display that he planned, then he knew he was doomed.

On the Friday morning, as the half Battalion turned southwards, Sharpe called Lieutenant Mattingley to him. Mattingley, like Smith, wanted to impress Sharpe, wanted forgiveness, and he showed a doglike relief when he saw that Sharpe was smiling. 'Sir?

'It is Friday, Mattingley.

'Indeed, sir.

'I want chicken for dinner.

'Chicken, sir? There's beef left.

'Chicken! Sharpe waved to a woman who watched the men pass and who returned ribald comments as good as she got from the marching ranks. 'White chickens, Mattingley, to the number of sixty.

'Sixty white chickens, sir?

'White chickens taste better. Buy them. Steal them if we haven't enough money, but find me sixty white chickens for dinner.

Mattingley wondered if Sharpe was proving to be just another eccentric officer. 'Yes, sir.

'And Mattingley?

'Sir?

'I want a feather mattress. Keep the feathers.

Mattingley was now convinced that Sharpe, who still wore a fading rose beneath his collar, was touched in the head. Too much fighting, perhaps. 'A feather mattress. Of course, sir.

That night, before a dinner of stewed chicken, Sharpe rehearsed his half Battalion in a manoeuvre which had never, so far as he knew, been performed by any Battalion in the history of war or peace, a manoeuvre that made the men laugh, but which, until they performed it to his satisfaction, he insisted on practising. Some, like Sergeant Lynch, thought he was crazy, others just thought that the whole army was mad, while Harper, who bellowed the strange orders, knew that Sharpe's high spirits meant that they were about to go into action.

And indeed, in the next dawn, which showed the southern sky hazed by a great smoke, Sharpe dressed himself in his old uniform of battle, his scarred, faded, tattered uniform that bore no marks of rank. He made Charlie Weller, who was skilled with a needle, sew the laurel wreath back onto his old sleeve. 'I wore that jacket when we captured the Eagle, Charlie.

'You did, sir? Weller watched wide-eyed as Sharpe pulled the green jacket on, and as he strapped the great sword about his waist. 'Something special today, sir?

'Yes, Charlie. It's Saturday the twenty-first of August. Sharpe drew the sword and turned it so that the rising sun ran its pale light up the blade. 'A very special day.

Weller grinned. 'Special, sir?

'Special, Charlie, because you're going to London to meet a Prince. Sharpe smiled, slammed the sword into its scabbard, then mounted his horse. He was going to a battle.